co-op city

In the past few weeks, I've become much more intimately acquainted with the world of DC food co-ops. Until early August, I was a member of the tiny, completely member-run City Garden Co-op, which was an Authentic Co-op Experience, I thought: shopping was members-only, you had a work shift every few weeks during which you sorted local strawberries and added people's purchases on a thirty-year-old adding machine, and you stirred buckets of homemade natural peanut butter with a large wooden paddle. The co-op is a Mount Pleasant institution - it's been there, in the same basement apartment, for over thirty years - and I loved it - even when the produce order didn't get in until five minutes before it closed, or when I found a dead mouse on the floor. But then I moved out of Columbia Heights and into Shaw, and it seemed illogical to stay a member of a miniscule co-op that would now be a forty-five minute walk away. So I left, and found...

Just a short jaunt down Rhode Island Avenue from my new house, Glut Food Co-op, a wonderful little store, but much bigger than City Garden, on this incredibly homey street in Mount Ranier Maryland, just over the DC border. If you make it past the carribean restaurant, the antique store, and the homeopathic remedy shop on 34th street, just north of Rhode Island Ave, you'll find an unassuming storefront with a giant carrot hanging over the door. Inside is a wealth of local produce, bulk everything, literally from soup (powdered split pea, and veggie chili) to nuts (walnuts, peanuts, pistachios, mixed, maple-coated...), a whole wall of bulk spices and teas, and a variety of jam, honey, seitan, bagels, and other necessities. This co-op is more relaxed - there are no members, and everyone can shop. But if you volunteer to work a four- or five-hour shift, you get store credit at the rate of $6.15 an hour - over $25 worth of free groceries every time you work. I love the neighborhood feel and the incredible selection at this place, and I think it might be my favorite DC co-op so far.

But an unemployed person cannot live on volunteerism and good vibes alone, and so I just got a part-time job at the Silver Spring Food Co-op, the daughter store of the massive Takoma Park Co-op nearby. TPSS is more like a natural food store than a co-op, in all honesty - there are members, but not a significant price break for them, and nonmembers can shop with no restrictions. It's a friendly place, though, and I'm enjoying my work as a produce stocker/buyer (as I fret about misleading them, since I have every intention of bailing once I find a "real" job someplace else). And a remarkable perk of this work is the concept of FTS food. When apples get dents in them, apricots start shriveling, bread is a day old, or maple cream-top yogurt expires, they go into the FTS - "free to staff" - bins and fridge in the store. From there, we are all free to eat them on the spot, or take them home and use them as we like. So far, I've taken some beautiful yellow cherry tomatoes, a handful of sweet (slightly moldy) raspberries, a full odwalla drink with spirulina, and a loaf of pumpernickel bread with oats sprinkled on top. It's a beautiful thing.

Bread is a major contributor to the FTS bins at all times. It gets stale quickly, especially since most co-op bread is made without preservatives, and though it's perfectly good to freeze or cook with, it's not sellable anymore and quickly becomes free to staff. I anticipate more bagels and baguettes than my housemates and I will know what to do with. For such times, bread pudding is an excellent option. You can use stale bread and nobody will know the difference. You can also experiement with different types of bread - any kind, from whole wheat to sourdough to multi-grain, will work - though more porous, light varieties (ie plain old non-nutritious white bread) tend to work best, since they are the most absorbant and will soak up the other ingredients to create a more uniform, nonlumpy, pudding-like dessert.

The following recipe comes from my co-worker Danielle, and I can vouch for its deliciousness. Try substituting raisin bread or stirring in some chocolate chunks, mashed bananas, or dried fruit for new and exciting options. If you serve it warm, it calls - hollers, even - for ice cream or whipped cream.

Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp of melted butter
• 2 cups of milk
• 1 1/3 cups of sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• Cinnamon to taste
• 4 slices of toasted bread (crumbled)

Procedure:

• Mix all ingredients (minus bread) together
• Pour mixture over crumbled bread into 1 10 x 6 pyrex dish
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes

a rich inheritance

a couple of weeks ago, I finished a yearlong stint with Avodah, the Jewish Service Corps. To get a sense of what we did you can take a look at the blog, but the relevant thing here is that the we all lived together, fifteen of us and a lot of delicious food, and that the program just ended, leaving only a few of us in DC and leaving a lot of that food homeless. Good service corps members that we are, we took that food into our new home. This means that we are now the proud owners of, among other things, two ten-pound bags of white rice, a Mystery Grain that turned out to be kasha, numerous granola bars, chocolate-covered almonds, four boxes of raisins, and over forty boxes of tea.

Fortunately, to go along with this wealth of inherited food, I also inherited three new (to me) cookbooks from my grandparents' den when I went to raid my grandfather's basement for housewares a few weeks ago. One of these, The New York Times' 1971 International Cookbook, includes a delicious recipe for the red lentils that were sitting in a baggie on our shelf. It can be found in the "Ceylon" section of this venerable tome (note to readers: Ceylon has been known as Sri Lanka since 1972. But such is the beauty of inherited cookbooks), I was able to make it with all inherited ingredients, and it's delicious. Serve it with basmati rice or, if you're feeling adventurous, add another vegetable curry and maybe some samosas to round out the meal.

Dhal (Lentil) Curry

Ingredients:

• 1 cup split red lentils
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 2-inch piece cinnamon, broken (granola bard's note: we unfortuntaely did not inherit any cinnamon sticks, so I used ground cinnamon instead. It came out fine.)
• 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• Salt, to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup coconut milk or cow's milk (granola bard's note: if you use this coconut milk, this recipe is vegan - not so much of a concern in 1971 - and coconut and lentils is an inspired combination, so why would you not?)

Process:

• Put the lentils in a saucepan with the water, one-half cup of the chopped onion, cinnamon, two cloves of the garlic, pepper, turmeric, and salt. Cook until the lentils are soft and most of the water is absorbed, about fifteen minutes. Stir in the lemon juice.
• Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add the remaining chopped onionl and garlic and cook until brown. Then add the mustard seed and cook briefly, stirring. Pour in the cooked lentils, add the milk, and cook five minutes, stirring.
  

peaches in july

It's hard to get more seasonal, produce-wise, than peaches in July. They're everywhere, those improbably fuzzy, delectably-scented red-and-yellow marvels. When I was into Greek myths, in elementary school, I always pictured ambrosia, the food of the gods, as something to do with peaches. They are an ethereal food.

Peaches gave me pause today, however, as I ate my lunch at work. Eating a peach is an earthy, almost rugged experience. The skin is tough and furry, but once you bite through, the insides are incredibly juicy, they drip, your hands get sticky. Peaches should be eaten outdoors in the summer. You've just bought one at a farm stand, bright red and yellow, firm, the size of your palm, and you lean over as your teeth pierce the skin, watching ambrosia-scented juice drip onto the sidewalk, and onto your bare toes.

I bought my peaches this weekend at my co-op, where I paid 89 cents a pound for the local, organic beauties. They seemed very earth-bound at the time - I rummaged through a cardboard box for the best ones as people roamed around me in the sticky Washington summer heat, buying fennel bulbs and large, mysterious, oval melons. When I fished a peach out of my lunch bag this afternoon, though, something seemed incongruous. I was dressed in work clothes, sitting in front of my computer, with goosebumps on my arms from the air conditioning even as a heat wave nudged temperatures outside into the high nineties. When I bit into my lunchtime peach, juice did drip - not, alas, onto hot asphalt and dusty toes but onto my neatly-ironed khaki pants. Peaches, it seems, are not a food for the office. They belong to long, lazy, sweltering summer days - in other words, like I thought when I was nine, to heaven.

This recipe for peach and cherry crisp (from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook) is delicious in early- to mid-summer, when both these fruits are in season.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups peeled and sliced peaches, plus 2 cups pitted, halved dark cherries
• 2-3 Tbs lemon juice
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup flour
• 2-3 Tbs brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 5 Tbs melted butter
• optional: 1/2 cup sliced almonds

Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 375
• Combine peaches, cherries, lemon juice, and white sugar in a 9-inch square pan
• Mix together remaining ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Distribute over the top of the fruit and pat firmly in place.
• Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes, until the top is crisp and lightly browned and the fruit is bubbling around the edges. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature, plain or à la mode.
  

more introductions, and hummus

The other impetus for this blog, besides the fact that I'm lousy at create-your-own recipe, is that I've been thinking increasingly about where my food comes from, and what its life was like
before it got there.

There are approximately eighty-seven million five thousand and three other people talking about these types of issues at this very moment - some, even, in the Washington Post, so I won't belabor any points right now. Maybe in some future posts.

Suffice it to say that I'm a Mollie Katzen wannabe who loves her tiny, tenacious food co-op as well as the plethora of farmer's markets in DC, with special shout-outs to the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market, which is open year-round, and the Adam's Morgan Farmer's Market, which is cheap and accepts WIC coupons and doesn't have a website.

And so, without further ado, an innaugural recipe (which - gasp! - is a little imprecise, for me. It's also very forgiving. Take a deep breath and just start sprinkling that cumin - it'll be fine.)

Basic Hummus

(Think hummus is a mysterious substance that grows pre-packaged in little plastic Whole Foods containers? Think again...)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked chickpeas (One small can works fine. You can also buy them dry, soak them overnight, and cook in simmering water until tender)
• 1 heaping tablespoon tahini (aka sesame paste)
• juice of one lemon
• one clove of garlic, minced
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• water, as needed
• paprika, for garnish (optional)

Process:

• Drain chickpeas. Pour into a blender or food processor, along with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and cumin.
• Add a small amount (1/4 cup or so) of water.
• Blend or process until smooth. You may need to turn off the blender/food processer and stir occasionally, to ensure that all chickpeas are crushed. You may also need to add more water, if the hummus isn't getting smooth enough for your liking.
• Scoop into your desired serving or storing container, and garnish with a sprinkle of paprika, if desired.

NOTE: hummus will get both less liquidy and less garlicky over time. If you like your hummus firmer, and your garlic mellower, make hummus at least a day ahead and refrigerate until you're ready to eat it.

Brand new blog

I am not an intuitive cook.

Occasionally I'll try to get the better of my non-intutive self and throw things - cumin, chopped-up basil leaves, dried cranberries, lemon zest, wheat germ - into a skillet and hope for the best. Only it's never the best. Usually it's barely edible.

I have come to terms with my lack of intuition in the kitchen. I have embraced it. I buy cookbooks and get recipes from people who cook and occasionally, in desperation, look up recipes online. And I'm not a bad cook. If you can follow directions, you can cook. There's really not that much creativity involved.

This blog is dedicated to people like me, who wouldn't know "a pinch" or "to taste" if it bit them on the chopping knife.

Happy cooking, with directions. :c)